Welcome to Roses & Thorns. All books receive honest reviews, regardless of our sources. We are no longer accepting submissions. While the blog will remain live, I cannot continue reviewing books. My own writing is suffering from keeping up with two blogs. I will post my last review on May 29, 2017. Thank you Rose and Donna for your help, authors for the (mostly) great reading, and readers for following us.

Roses & Thorns

Sunday, July 31, 2016

Parker
Townsend raised his children alone after he lost his beloved wife to cancer.
When his two little hellions placed a “Mom Wanted” ad in the local paper,
Parker found himself roped into an unwanted blind date.

Claire
Lauer answered the want ad with few expectations, and met Parker on Valentine’s
Day, a day she hated with a passion. As an animal rights activist and a
divorcée, she felt more comfortable with a placard in her hand than in the
company of a handsome man with emotional baggage.

After a protest takes a turn for the worse, she seeks shelter in
her date’s arms and loses time in his bed. Will Parker and Claire find the
courage to lay their fragile hearts on the chopping block by morning, or will
they forever live in a world of gray?

About the Author:

Writing is the fruit to
happiness.

Amber Daulton lives her
life by that one belief even though she normally isn’t so Zen.

Author
of several novellas, she published her first book in 2012 and hopes to publish
countless more in the future. As a fan of contemporary, paranormal, and
historical romance novels alike, she can’t get enough of feisty heroines and
alpha heroes. Her mind is a wonderland of adventure, laughter, and awesome ways
of kicking a guy when he’s down. She probably wouldn’t be too sane without her
computer and notebooks. After all, what’s a girl to do when there are people
jabbering away in her head and it’s hard to shut them up?Write!Nothing
else works.

Review:

Neither
Parker nor Claire particularly wanted to go on a blind date on Valentine’s Day.
Parker’s kids placed a “Mom Wanted” ad in his brother’s newspaper, and Claire’s
daughter all but dialed the number to get her to reply. The only reason either
showed up in the end was that it would be rude to leave someone sitting alone in
a nice restaurant on Valentine’s Day. In fact, Claire never even spoke to
Parker—his brother screened the calls and set up the whole thing, after which
his sister-in-law and kids scoped Claire out at work, posing as customers.

But
the date goes better than either expects. When Parker asks Claire why she keeps
getting text messages, she confesses she planned to attend an animal rights
protest at the circus to which he intended to take his kids. As Claire launches
into a passionate explanation of the abuses to which the circus owners subject
their animals, Parker calls for the check. I’ve
driven another one away, Claire thinks. Nope. Parker escorts her to the
protest, grabs a placard, and joins in the chant. It’s a perfect date until one
of the protesters sneaks inside the circus and frees a tiger, the police show
up, and chaos ensues. The couple manages to slip off to their car and even spends
the night together, kids safely off spending the night with family.

My Valentine Adventure was a fun romp with
kids doing most of the match-making for their respective reluctant parents. It’s
another sweet romance, two in a row being a nice break from the sex scenes I’ve
been reading in other books, and I confess, writing in my own work-in-progress.

The
only reason I’m giving My Valentine
Adventure four roses is that again, it could use better editing. I hate to
do so, because Ms. Daulton is a fellow #GlassSlipperSister. But, I am nothing
if not honest on this site, and anyone who follows this blog knows I’m a
stickler for editing issues. It truly is a shame when an author suffers because
of inadequate editing, and this is not
an indie book. My Valentine Adventure
presumably went through both a content and copy editor, who apparently lacked a
copy of the Chicago Manual of Style.

You’ll
notice we always include the publisher’s buy link. That’s because authors
usually receive 40-50% of the net proceeds from the publisher. Editors and
cover artists usually receive about 5%. When you buy a book from Amazon, Barnes
& Noble or another third-party vendor, they take a hefty cut and the
author, editors and cover artists receive their cuts from what is left. So, if
a book costs $5.99 at E-Book Publisher.com and you buy from there, the author
will receive about $2.40-$2.99. If you buy the book at Amazon, the author will
receive about $1.70-$2.10.

Download
the file from the publisher onto your computer as you would any other file.
I’ve created a folder for books on my computer, with subfolders by source
(Marketing for Romance Writers, Net Galley, Authors who find me on Kindle
lists, etc.). That way, if there’s a glitch with your Kindle, the books are on
your computer. Some publishers send books in all digital formats. If my Kindle
breaks and my kids buy me a Nook, I won’t have to replace all of my books. If
you have a Kindle and your hubby has a Nook, you won’t have to buy separate
copies, so buying directly from the publisher can save you money.

Moving
the file from your computer to your e-reader is as easy as transferring any
file from your computer to a USB flash drive. Plug the larger USB end of your e-reader
charging chord into a USB port on your computer and simply move the file from
the folder into which you’ve downloaded the book to Documents/Books directory
on your e-reader. You can move the file by highlighting it and dragging it to
the documents directory in you Kindle you want to move it to. Or right click on
it, and then left click copy or move. Or hit Control/C for copy, Control/X for
cut, and Control/V for paste.

Your
author will be happy you did when he/she sees his/her royalty statement.

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Annabeth
is a hopeless romantic who believes in soul mates. In fact, she’s been writing
to hers each year on her birthday since she was sixteen.

Now,
at thirty-four, she’s still holding out hope of finding Mr. Right, even though he’d
be fighting an uphill battle to gain her trust thanks to a traumatic experience
years before that’s left her unable to commit.

When
Annabeth meets a handsome literature professor named Alex on her thirty-fourth
birthday, she thinks her quest may finally be at an end. Things don’t quite go
as planned, so Annabeth resolves to do everything she can over the next year to
find the unknown recipient of her letters. But blind dates, Meetup events, and
online singles sites have nothing on what fate has in store for her when a
co-worker unexpectedly quits and Annabeth finds herself working in close
quarters with both Alex and her long ago ex, Nick. Fighting her attraction to
one and loathing for the other, Annabeth is forced to face all of her old
insecurities while keeping an eye on a scheming frienemy who may derail her
hopes and dreams.

Written
in the tradition of Bridget Jones’ Diary, Kim Gruenfelder’s A Total
Waste of Makeup, and Melissa Pimental’s Love By The Book, this
romantic comedy shows that love on the sweet side can exist for the modern
girl, if only she’s willing to trust herself and search hard enough.

About the Author:

Nicole
Evelina is an award-winning historical fiction and romantic comedy writer. Been Searching for You won the 2015
Romance Writers of America (RWA) Great Expectations and Golden Rose contests.

She
also writes historical fiction. Her debut novel, Daughter of Destiny, the first book of an Arthurian legend trilogy
that tells Guinevere’s life story from her point of view, was named Book of the
Year by Chanticleer Reviews, took the Grand Prize in the 2015 Chatelaine Awards
for Women’s Fiction/Romance, won a Gold Medal in the fantasy category in the
Next Generation Indie Book Awards and was short-listed for the Chaucer Award
for Historical Fiction. Later this year, she will release Madame Presidentess (July 25), a historical novel about Victoria
Woodhull, America’s first female Presidential candidate, which was the first
place winner in the Women’s US History category of the 2015 Chaucer Awards for
Historical Fiction.

Nicole
is one of only six authors who completed a week-long writing intensive taught
by #1 New York Times bestselling author Deborah Harkness. Nicole has traveled
to England twice to research the Guinevere’s Tale trilogy, where she consulted
with internationally acclaimed author and historian Geoffrey Ashe, as well as
Arthurian/Glastonbury expert Jaime George, the man who helped Marion Zimmer
Bradley research The Mists of Avalon.

Nicole
is a member of and book reviewer for The Historical Novel Society, and Sirens
(a group supporting female fantasy authors), as well as a member of the
Historical Writers of America, Women’s Fiction Writers Association, Romance
Writers of America, the St. Louis Writer’s Guild, Women Writing the West, Broad
Universe (promoting women in fantasy, science fiction and horror), Alliance of
Independent Authors and the Independent Book Publishers Association.

Review:

Been
Searching for You starts off in an unusual way. It’s Annabeth’s thirty-fourth
birthday, and she’s writing a letter to her soulmate. She’s done so every year
since she was sixteen. As yet, she has no idea who he is. She simply believes
he’s out there somewhere, and they’ll find each other someday—even though she
finds it hard to trust men after her hometown boyfriend dumped her when she refused
to have sex with him.

Her
best friend, Mia, is a top model and party girl who dates her other best friend
and work-partner, Miles. Together, Annabeth and Miles are the top public
relations creative team in Chicago, and her birthday happens to fall on the
same night as the Chicago’s Top Fifty Singles event she and Miles have
organized. While singles will be auctioned off, there’s also mingling over
drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Annabeth meets Professor Alex Grantham who has
agreed to bid on Mia for a friend. Besides, he’s just getting over someone
else. The timing isn’t right.

Been Searching for You was a refreshing,
sweet romance about a nice girl who reminded me a bit of myself. Annabeth is a
bit smarter than the average person, well-read, and a hopeless romantic who’s
been crushed. But she does find her Mr. Right, and since it’s a romance, I don’t
think I’m giving too much away by saying she gets her HEA. You have to read the
book to find out how.